


till tomorrow

by wildcard_47



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Also Just Plain Sexytimes, Draw Me Like One of Your French Girls, Hot 4 Captain, IT'S ART!!!, M/M, Prompt Fill, Sexy Drawing Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Late one evening, Francis discovers a surprising secret about James.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 21
Kudos: 140





	till tomorrow

Sitting in his bunk, sketching quietly to the light of a flickering oil lamp, James had nearly decided to give up on his current rendering and turn in when the door to the Great Cabin slammed open, and a loud Irish brogue rang through the outer room:

“For the love of Christ, _Fitzjames,_ will you not even receive your Captain when he calls on you?”

This outburst was accompanied by Bridgens’ voice, low and urgent. “Of course he would normally, sir, but considering the hour—”

Loud footsteps echoed across the planks.

“Captain Fitzjames has retired to his quarters for the evening; he may even be—”

James startled as the door to his berth was unceremoniously flung open, but remained abed, looking up from his sketchbook just as Francis Crozier stopped over the threshold.

“—asleep.” Bridgens sighed as he picked his way past the _Terror_ Captain to present himself, offering James a weary and apologetic smile. “Sir, I hope we did not wake you?”

“Not at all, Bridgens. Likely shall be up for an hour or two yet.” James gave his steward a friendly smile in return; it was clear the man could not have talked Crozier down from this fugue even if he’d the wit of Old Nick himself. Immediately, he turned his attention to his First. “Captain Crozier. How may I be of service?”

Still in his slops, Crozier was frowning as if he found the sight of his Second abed in the middle of the night personally offensive. “What are—are you— _drawing?_ ”

Managing to restrain a sigh of his own, James merely shrugged. “Yes. What of it?”

“Beg pardon, Captain Fitzjames.” A rather pointed interruption from Bridgens. “Shall I stoke the brazier, sir?”

“Not now, I think,” answered James after a moment, eyeing the way this proclamation had made Crozier’s eye twitch with badly-concealed annoyance. “We shall conduct our business within. Save a bit more fuel that way. And I do not believe we are in need of any additional refreshment, unless…?”

Crozier caught James’s gaze, then scowled. “‘M fine.”

“Thank you, Mister Bridgens,” James intoned, raising his eyebrows at Captain Crozier in an expectant look. “And our guest does not appear to need help with his slops at present, as far as I can tell?”

Crozier’s scowl widened, and he flushed a deeper red. “Yes, yes, that’ll be all for now, Mister Bridgens, thank you.”

Bridgens departed with haste, shutting the door very quietly behind him; James was not at all surprised when the _Terror_ Captain turned round as if to latch it.

And then Crozier turned to look at James again. “ _Why_ are you drawing?”

James raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you came all this way to find out?”

“No,” growled Crozier. Looking down, he finally seemed to realize he was still in his slops, and cursed softly. “Damn it. A moment.”

As quickly as he’d arrived, he darted back out to the Great Cabin; James thought for a moment about getting up, making himself more presentable, but he’d no sooner closed his sketchbook and run an anxious hand through his hair than Crozier returned, with two glasses and a bottle of something brown. He set these three items onto James’s desk, and sat down, pouring a healthy measure of liquor into each glass before thrusting one in James’s direction.

“Well, I suspect we are not preparing to talk about ship’s business,” drawled James as he took the drink. “But you may consider me all ears, then, sir.”

Crozier winced, and gulped down a measure from his own glass before he spoke. “Don’t let’s stand on bloody ceremony, Fitzjames. Considering it’s not two bells and you’re only in your damned nightgown.”

James waited a moment before correcting him. “Shirt.”

“As you like it.” Crozier made that pained face again, now staring down into his glass as if it were about to portend his fortune. “Why the hell should you be drawing at this hour, then? They’ll not let you keep any of the self-portraits.”

“Good Christ, Francis, are you really going to scratch at a man’s hobbies from within his own berth? Shall I away to _Terror_ and harp on about your magnetic sciences? Or your dr—”

“I’m _not_ scratching, damn it.” Francis placed his glass on the desk, crossed both arms over his middle, and expelled a heavy breath. “Only asking questions.”

“Well, you’ve only asked one question of me so far. And it hardly counts, as you shouted it at quarterdeck volume while attempting to deride the pastime entirely.”

“Sodding Christ. Have you always been so facetious, or is this a recent development?”

But Francis quieted, and seemed thoughtful. His countenance grew melancholy and distant, similar to how he had looked on the night they spoke of Sophia Cracroft. Perhaps that was what had brought him to the flagship so late in the evening. Perhaps Francis desired company, or at the very least wanted to glimpse a fellow officer’s face, and to know he was not alone with his personal demons.

“I did not know you could do. Draw, that is,” was all he said, after a long silence.

“Yes. Er.” Fitzjames felt around the mass of blankets for his closed sketchbook, and opened it again to flip through the first dozen or so renderings. “Mostly scenes and vignettes. Only a few life portraits. In truth I’m dreadfully out of practice.”

As he gathered up his notebook to flip a particular page, intending to showcase a few of the Arctic landscapes, a sheaf of loose papers slid from the back; James grabbed for them, but given his position and the way they fell over the railing, Crozier was quicker.

Mentally cursing himself, James awaited the _Terror_ Captain’s reaction as Crozier organized the papers, then began to look over them in earnest.

“Jesus, Mary, and the goddamned Joseph. Is that _LeVesconte?_ ”

James winced, motioning for Crozier to give him back the drawings. “I did say I was out of practice.”

“Out of—the man’s completely fucking _starkers_ , Fitzjames!”

“Dundy agreed to model for me on the evenings when neither of us were on duty—”

Crozier flipped through each one with rapidly-mounting ire. “Am I to assume all my first lieutenants are parading through your bloody berth like poorly-aged catamites, on the small chance that their peacocking might improve your goddamned portraiture?”

James sat up, ready to fling off his blankets and beg for understanding if necessary. “Francis, please. There’s no harm in it. I—no one else knows, not even Bridgens. Dundy and a few others modelled for me before on _HMS Excellent_ —even our Captain sat for a small rendering, in the end. Stayed in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, mind, but found no impropriety in the act of sitting for a sketch. Why, I daresay even you could—”

This was precisely the wrong thing to say; Francis reared back like he’d been struck full in the face; a snarl sprang to his mouth. “Even _I_ could? Do you think me so utterly hideous that no audience should _ever_ wish to see me in less than full uniform?”

Fitzjames’ eyes widened. Oh, good Christ, the man felt he’d been insulted. “No, I simply—”

“Or so aged and _wretchedly_ infirm that I should never want my likeness put to paper? Perhaps only men of the finest English stock embody the Olympiad idyll. Never mind that your _dear_ LeVesconte can hardly sit through one wardroom gathering without choking to death on the nearest plate of biscuits—”

“Francis, I meant you no quarter; you must believe that. You’ve a good figure. I-I daresay a pleasing one, if you’ll forgive the impertinence.”

Crozier had already risen from his chair. Ruddy color had rushed into his face and down below his collar. “I’ll not tolerate empty flattery.”

“It isn’t, for god’s sake! I—what if I proved it to you? I could make you a portrait here and now. However you like, in your coat, or, or your shirtsleeves, or—”

“Yes, yes, allow Captain Crozier’s modesty to cause wild _hysteria_ amongst all future subjects. So painfully grotesque he must shield each inch of repulsiveness within a greatcoat!”

Crozier was already shrugging out of his waistcoat, tossing it down into the floor before he started in on his shirtsleeves. Before James could utter another word of protest, the _Terror_ Captain yanked his shirt over his head; this, too, joined its companion on the frozen planks.

James’s first thought was that perhaps he had not had enough to drink, as his face flushed hot from the shock. And then he wondered if perhaps he had drunk too much already; his glass already sat empty at his knee, and the vessel itself now only reflected the lamplight and the sturdy slope of Crozier’s bare chest and belly.

By the time Crozier had stripped down to his smallclothes, the fierce snarl tugging at his upper lip had lessened, but had not diminished completely. James actually held his breath as he watched his First yank his laces open, then push his smallclothes down his hips. 

Now fully bared to James’s gaze, Crozier did not falter or fumble. He simply met James’s shock-wide eyes, stepped away from his discarded clothes, and drew himself up tall. “Well, then. How does the _great artist_ want me?”

“I don’t, ah. Consider myself that,” said James, for lack of any better response. His breath had quickened. His palms were sweating. “But you could. Er. Stand. With the chair as your, er. Well, as a sort of—substitute for—I mean, we can fashion it to be rather, er, captainly.”

Hesitantly, he gestured to the chair, and then to the lamp. “May I?”

James did not allow himself to dwell too deeply on their close proximity as he rose from his berth. First, he set the empty glasses and the liquor bottle in the middle of the desk, arranging them in a neat row. Next, he folded Francis’s greatcoat in half, placing this beside the bottles before relocating the lamp to the right-hand corner. 

Finally, he turned to Francis, who had turned a rather brilliant shade of pink all the way down his chest, either from the cold or from sudden mortification. Noticing this, James decided it would be better to talk as he worked. Make the man feel at ease. “Well. Er. Let’s face the chair like so.” He pushed it across the planks, barely registering the squeaking noise it made as he turned the curved back to face the door. “Put your left leg up, resting your foot here, in the middle of the seat. That way we get the handsome line of the muscle… well. You’ll look, er. Well.”

He removed himself from Francis’s side as quickly as possible without raising alarm, and seeing no opportunity to go elsewhere, simply returned to his berth and sat down, squashing the urge to pull every bit of his blankets across his lap. He would not humiliate himself. He was drawing the Captain’s portrait, and nothing more.

“Erm. Are you comfortable? I can fetch you a blanket for your feet to ease the chill. Bring in a few more lamps.”

Crozier fixed him with a steely glare. In the low lamplight, his blue eyes sparked like hot coals. “Just draw the bloody picture before I change my mind.”

“As ever, I serve at your command,” James murmured. He had no right to offer such cheek to his expedition commander—but he took up his pencil and began to sketch. At first, the strokes were light and quick, barely impressions of the masculine pose Crozier presented, but soon enough he had begun to draw the Terror captain in earnest, and focused his energy on capturing the man in accuracy.

He had not been speaking false, before. Crozier had a marvelous figure; anyone who possessed an eye for pleasing things could have noticed this. But the truth was even more apparent to any artist who sought to coax beauty out from the most startling, secretive places. Had any of their men known that Captain Crozier’s freckles extended all the way down his full backside and hips, or saw the masculine slope of his strong, barrel-round chest and stomach, they might fall prostrate to the floor in sheer delight, and never rise again. T’would make holystoning the lower deck most convenient.

“What are you smiling about?” growled Francis.

James glanced up; the shock of meeting Francis’s gaze full-on was enough to bring him to full attention. “Er. Holystoning?”

A beat of silence. This was clearly not the answer Francis had expected. _“Why?”_

“Just, er, imagining the view from above, as it were. Or below.”

“Of me, or of the bloody stone?”

“Obviously there are no errant holystones within the berth.” James paused as he noticed the Terror captain had begun to shift the line of his body in order to glare at James. “Hold _still_ , Francis. As you were!”

Crozier obeyed; although his mouth did not quite have the same grim set to it as before. Deciding to fill in his torso and figure first, James worked in silence for a few minutes, pretending detachment as he found the most suitable curve for his First’s lower back.

“So do you always picture _holystones_ while you’re life drawing?” Francis was attempting to sneer at him, although his voice was much too quiet to be intimidating.

“Only when rendering captains.” Suddenly unable to meet the man’s eyes, James looked down, and became distracted by the thickness of Francis’s left thigh, imagining how the muscles would flex if Francis wiggled his toes. And suddenly, as if by some miracle, Francis did move his toes; the resulting burst of muscle was so handsome James seized on the opportunity to draw it immediately. “ _Yes._ Keep your weight there. Toes flexed. Slightly forward.”

Transfixed by the stocky jut of Francis’s flexed thigh, James gave in to the thrum of excitement rushing through his body, filling in muscles and tendons and sheer hefting power with a giddy rush of delight. He saw nothing but lines and planes and shapes, shadows and light. And all of it belonged to Francis: every freckle, each pockmark, each pale squiggling scar. All man. _Christ,_ he was beautiful. James throbbed more eagerly beneath the blankets with each new uncovered realm, and yet he could not stop staring, marveling, imagining. The background noise of the ship and the plain cypress walls fell away to reveal a Francis that James had never met. Gone was the foul-tempered pessimist—the sort of man who should have seemed small and petty whilst standing stark naked in the middle of a Captain’s berth. Here was the true sailor and leader hidden beneath. The genius who had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society before two and thirty—the gifted sailor who had, if ship’s gossip was to be believed, once threaded _Terror_ through the Great Ice Barrier. He looked lighter and more nimble out of uniform; it should have made him seem diminished. Yet outside his uniform he possessed a strong, raw magnetism, mixed with such rare vulnerability. James would point out all these pleasing features at length once the portrait was finished. There could be no denying plain facts, then. _How striking you look this way, Francis. Not grumpy, never grotesque. So masculine. Exquisite._

“James.”

With a grunt, James returned to himself, his head snapping up from the notebook. “What?”

Francis, now slumping over his bent leg, working some type of knot from the top of his calf, had the grace to look apologetic. “Leg’s, ah. Cramped up.”

“Oh. Sorry. Move if you like.” James felt as if he were emerging from a haze of fog. His pencil had been worn down, the blankets were covered in eraser shavings, and his fingers were smeared with lead. “I, er, hope you weren’t hurting long.”

“No.” The expression on Francis’s face was not annoyance, but was still guarded. As if he were curious about something but knew not how to voice it. “Though I am less certain you’d have noticed, had I not said so. You become rather a different man as you work.”

“Do I?”

“Mm.” Francis braced both hands against his lower back, leaning first one way and then the other, groaning in pleasure as he got to a particularly satisfying stretch. “Christ.”

James drank in each movement in with eager eyes, quickly looking away when Francis glanced toward him. “Suppose I do become rather animated.” He tried not to consider all the stupid expressions he must have made whilst he was drawing. “Sorry if it, ah…bothers you.”

“No. ‘S fine.” Francis cleared his throat, eyebrows lifting toward the seat of the chair. “Are we… will I need to...again?”

“Oh—yes. Perhaps five more minutes, and then I’ll be able to fill in the details on my own.” James glanced down at the rendering in his hand; while the majority of Francis’s body and the beginnings of his face had been filled in well, the portrait was still too unfinished for his liking. “Are you too cold? You can wear a blanket if you like.”

Francis’s face was pinker than before, but he just shook his head, setting his jaw as if he thought James could not see him shivering. “No. Let’s just—push through.”

“Right.” James picked up his pencil, trying not to gawk like a schoolboy as Francis planted his left leg in the chair seat, briskly rubbing his hands together before straightening to his full height again. “Haul ‘way. You’ll, ah, need to tilt your head a bit. Look toward the left corner.”

The second session passed in a blur. James was no longer delighted by the ability to study his First’s face in such detail; instead, a heavy, prickling sense of anticipation had seized him ‘round the middle. There was not enough time to make the rendering as lovely as Francis deserved. A true artist could spend a year studying Crozier’s craggy face and find that time lacking to accurately chart its expressive peaks and valleys. James himself could spend hours trying to perfect the mischievous lift of Crozier’s right brow and still come up wanting. He’d already tried three times and had barely found the correct shape of it at all. Oh, Christ, his hands were shaking, now. Francis was not going to like the depiction. He would thunder at James o’er such disrespect and sloppiness till the entire ship heard the headlines, if not the full text of such a report. He would rip up every one of James’s portraits—would never dare speak to James again outside of wardroom business. 

E’en the thought made James swallow hard. He cleared his throat to conceal the desperate noise that sought to worm its way into the air.

“Fitzjames?”

The hand that touched his forearm was chilled through; James yelped by reflex, dropping his sketchbook and flattening himself against the wall of his bunk before he realised Francis was not here to dole out reprimands or mark him for duty owing.

Standing in front of the bunk dressed only in socks and shirtsleeves, Francis now seemed very awkward indeed, shifting from foot to foot and tugging at the tails of a blanket as he elaborated, “Need to warm up.”

“Oh.” Quickly, James gathered his supplies, and shoved a blanket from his lap so Francis might take it. “Yes, of course. Get in.”

Francis did, shivering rather fiercely as he sat down, wrapped the blanket around himself, and pulled his feet up beneath the coverlet. They sat together, shoulders touching, for several minutes without speaking. It was not until the worst of Francis’s tremors had subsided that he finally turned to James, pointing at the sketchbook with a jut of his chin.

“And? How did it come out?”

“Well,” James demurred, as a rush of nerves caused his hands to bloom hot and his cock to twitch hopefully beneath the blankets, “I-I’ve still got to clean the lines up, obviously.”

Francis’s smile seemed more like a grimace.

“But you can, ah, look. If it pleases you.” Slowly, as if he expected his hand to be slapped, he extended the sketchbook to Francis, knowing full well what the man would see there. Something shabby and silly and not worthy of a Captain of his stature.

As Francis opened the book to the correct page, James held his breath, and looked resolutely away. The sharp skitter of pages turning in their binding was now only suppressed by Francis’s slight inhale.

“This… is how you see me?”

James’s pulse lodged in his throat, and his entire body longed for a brotherly touch, or even a small caress, neither of which would come. “I am only sorry I did not get it exact.”

He would have spent a full evening entire sketching in the smallest details—the glossy sheen that came to Francis’s blue eyes in the low lamplight, or perhaps the way his many little scars and freckles mapped a glorious road across his pale, strong body—but there was only time to capture the high points. Not time enough to make Francis fully beautiful in the way he deserved.

Francis let out a sigh. “I am not taking the piss out of you. ‘Tis an honest question. Is this—” he gestured to the book again “—how you see me? Truly?”

“I don’t understand,” murmured James.

“You’ve made me _look_ pleasing. Intriguing. Much less hideous, on the whole.”

“Come now—”

“And a great many other qualities I do not possess.”

“You do possess them, Francis.” James’s voice was thready. “It—I do not exaggerate. Merely bringing forward w-what others do not readily observe.”

“Then you admit you find me _pleasing_ , James?” Crozier’s voice gained a low, silky quality. His hand left the binding of the book to touch the inside of James’s knee; James shivered in anticipation. “Intriguing?” His hand wandered up the middle of James’s thigh. “Dare I say—?”

The rest of the sentence was drowned out by James’s loud, sudden groan as Francis palmed over the outline of James’s very hard cock. 

Shocked by his own reaction, James pitched forward into Francis’s shoulder as a spurt of pre-come seeped through his linens. “Oh!”

Flushed face still hidden against Francis’s bared shoulder, James squeezed his eyes shut, prepared to face a furious torrent of reprimands. Instead, Francis squeezed him again, slow and experimental, causing James’s breath to hitch in his throat. “Francis...”

“You’ve been wet for me this entire time?” Francis sounded amazed; his accent thickened and grew with every word. “How could you draw a damned thing in this condition, hm?”

“Couldn’t help it,” gasped James, as Francis’s fingers dipped beneath his linens to caress the head of his bare cock. “You looked so hands— _oh,_ _god,_ Francis, there. Please.”

“Tell me you’ve not done this with your _dear LeVesconte,_ and I’ll continue _._ ”

“Course we haven’t.” James’s back was now flush with the mattress; he shivered with delight when he felt the solid warm weight of Francis’s body cover his. “Hardly stops eating long enough to draw breath.”

Eyebrows raising in shock, Francis barked out a laugh worthy of a ring seal. The sound echoed around the berth so loudly it could have woken half the orlop, but James didn’t care, because Francis’ smiling mouth was now kissing his and Francis’ bare chest was pressed against his, and a warm, weathered hand grasped between them to stroke James’s cock in earnest.

“Mmph. Oh, please, Francis, yes. Just there. Just—” James gasped again, bucking up against the relentless rising tide as Francis sped up his strokes, “—nnh! I’ll not last.”

Fumbling between them to touch the swell of Francis’s cock, thick and proud, James was soon lost to a blissful haze, and could do naught but groan and gasp and bite his lip as Francis pleased him. Soon enough, Francis nudged James’s shaking fingers aside and took them both in hand, setting a quick, steady rhythm.

When James came, he clutched Francis all the tighter, muffling his cry in the curve of Francis’s neck; Francis made a low, helpless noise, and spilled across James’s stomach in long, pulsing spurts, collapsing onto his side next to James as they caught their breath. 

It was at least a minute or two before either of them spoke again. Francis was the first to break the silence. “Now where’d your damn book get off to?”

“Book hasn’t got off,” slurred James, grinning, “we did.”

“Very funny,” grumbled Francis as he crawled backwards and navigated down the ladder; James shivered as his left side was briefly exposed to the icy air. “S’pose you can find it in the morning, can’t you?”

“Mm hm. ‘S behind the berth.” James was already dozing; he thought someone might have brought another blanket. The weight atop him was familiar and pleasant. “C’n stay if y’like.”

Francis’s voice faded in and out; James could hardly pick out the words, but the tone was warm. “... already… away to _Terror_ … six bells.”

“‘Mmkay,” murmured James, and drew his legs up under the blankets so he was lying directly in the warmest part of the bed. “Till tomorrow, then.”

He thought that Francis echoed this farewell, but was too warm and sated to dwell on the matter for very long.

##

The morning after Captain Crozier’s ill-timed visit, when Captain Fitzjames appeared in the wardroom with fever-bright cheeks, dark circles ringing his eyes, and a creased brow that suggested a searing headache, Bridgens thought little of it, and mixed up a headache powder without comment.

Later that morning, as he tidied Captain Fitzjames’s berth, he spotted yet another familiar sight: the Captain’s leather-bound sketchbook, spilling open and crushed between the inch or so of space separating the wall and the berth itself. 

Poor man always fell asleep drawing, didn’t he?

Using the handle of a shoehorn to fetch out the book, Bridgens shook off a piece of ice from the cover, took the sheaf of loose papers in his hands, and quickly collated them into some semblance of organization. It was not until he placed them back into the binding where rich leather and bound pages met that he saw the rendering at the top of the pile, creased heavily in one corner from where it had lain all evening.

The subject of this rendering was Captain Crozier, naked as the day he was born and styled in the manner of a Romantic Delacroix or perhaps even a Géricault. Using a chair to balance himself—as casually as if he were undressing for the evening after a long day’s work—Crozier appeared both triumphant and weatherbeaten, confident and vulnerable, masculine yet feminine. Yet given the body language, he also appeared every inch the hero. It was a fascinating rendering. Bridgens had never seen a sketch quite like it, not even in the Royal Academy exhibitions he so often frequented ashore. Perhaps this was representative of what the younger generation was painting in the newest _salons_ —bold figures of action, rendered in intimate, if rather dramatic, detail. Or representative of a significant thaw in the relationship between the two captains. Particularly if the proportions of Crozier’s physique were accurate, and had been drawn from life.

Lips curving into a secretive smile, Bridgens replaced the drawing in Captain Fitzjames’s sketchbook, closed and tied it, and relocated the book to its usual place behind the atlases, brushing an errant speck of dust from its cover as he did so. That was the mark of a talented steward: ensuring yet another secret was folded up and safely stored among the rest, hidden in plain sight.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Don McLean song ["Till Tomorrow"](https://open.spotify.com/track/4GLX0kGODwKhFnFps21zx6?si=gyiy2GdkRra6pmfniTJLNQ), which is way better than The One We Do Not Sing anyway. Originally it was inspired by a prompt, but that prompt floated across my tumblr dash like 6 months ago and I did not save it or write it down before starting this fic. My bad!


End file.
